Sunday, February 1, 2015

Who Will Feed China?

Lester Brown is an
environmental analyst, and founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and the Earth
Policy Institute.His grand plan was to
observe global trends, and produce objective information.Brown’s many books and reports have provided
rational advice for the world’s irrational policymakers.He has not sold his soul to corporate
interests.

In 1994, Brown wrote an essay, Who Will Feed China?It triggered an explosive response.Chinese leaders angrily denounced him.But behind the scenes, they realized that
their nation was vulnerable, because they had not perceived the big picture
clearly.Brown expanded his essay into a
book with the same title, published in 1995.It became a classic.Reading it 20
years later is eerie, because many of his warnings now sound like the daily
news.

Before they industrialized, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
were already densely populated.Then,
the growth of industry gobbled up a lot of cropland, which reduced food
production, and forced all three to become dependent on imported grain.In 1994, Japan imported 72 percent of its
grain, South Korea 66 percent, and Taiwan 76 percent.

Brown saw that China was on a similar trajectory.Cropland was limited, and it was rapidly
being lost to sprawl, industry, and highways.They were likely to lose half of their cropland by 2030.They were also likely to add another 500
million people by 2030.As incomes rose,
people were eager to enjoy a richer diet, including more meat and beer.This required even more cropland per person.

Freshwater for agriculture was also limited, and much of it
was being diverted to growing cities and factories.About 300 cities were already short of
water.China’s capitol, Beijing, was
among 100 cities with severe water shortages.Demand for water was sure to rise.Only a few Chinese had indoor plumbing, and everyone wanted it.

Many farmers were forced to drill wells and pump irrigation
water from aquifers, often at rates in excess of natural recharge — water
mining.As enormous amounts of water were
removed underground, subsidence occurs.The ground surface sinks, filling the void below, making it impossible
for the aquifer to recharge in the future.In northern China, subsidence affects a region the size of Hungary.Irrigated fields produce the most food, but
water mining will eventually force a reduction in irrigation.Some regions may be forced to stop growing rice,
a water-guzzling crop, and replace it with less productive millet or sorghum.

Grain productivity (yield per hectare) annually grew an
average of 7.1 percent between 1977 and 1984.The annual increase was less than 2 percent between 1984 and 1990, and just
0.7 percent between 1990 and 1994.There
were great hopes for biotechnology, but 20 years of efforts led to no
significant increase in grain yields.Meanwhile,
the Yellow River moved 1.6 billion tons of topsoil to the ocean every year.

Now, assemble the pieces.Population was likely to grow from 1.2 billion in 1995 to 1.66 billion
in 2045.Per capita grain consumption was
growing, likely to increase 33 percent by 2030.Cropland area was likely to decrease 50 percent by 2030.Water for irrigation was limited, and certain
to diminish.Annual grain harvests may have
been close to, or beyond, their historic peak.The effects of climate change cannot be predicted, but might be severe.In 1995, the notion of Peak Oil had not yet
spread beyond the lunatic fringe, and Brown didn’t mention it, but at some point,
it will make modern agriculture impossible.

Demand for grain was rising at a rate that would sharply exceed
China’s harvests.If their economy
remained strong, they would have the money to import food.But, would the food they need be available on
the world market?Following a century of
catastrophic population growth, many nations were dependent on imported food.

As world population continued to grow, the ability to further
increase food production was wheezing.World
grain stocks fell from 465 million tons in 1987, to 298 million tons in
1994.At some point, surging demand for
grain would exceed the surpluses of the exporters.This would drive up the price of food.

Brown selected ten large developing nations where population
growth remained extreme, and projected how much food they would need to import
by 2030.“By 2030, these countries —
assuming no improvement in diet — will need to import 190 million tons of
grain.This is six times the amount they
import today and nearly equal to total world grain exports in 1994.”

We were moving into an era of food instability.“For the first time, an environmental event —
the collision of expanding human demand with some of the earth’s natural limits
— will have an economic impact that affects the entire world.”Annual economic growth for the world was
falling.The global economy grew 5.2
percent in the ’60s, 3.4 percent in the ’70s, 2.9 percent in the ’80s, and 1.4
percent in 1990-94.Slower growth, plus
rising food prices, plus falling incomes, sets the stage for trouble. “It could lead to political unrest and a
swelling flow of hungry migrants across national borders.”

Agriculture was running out of steam.The wizards of industrial civilization
insisted that perpetual growth was possible, because our miraculous technology
could overcome all challenges.They were
wrong.Brown concludes, “The bottom line
is that achieving a humane balance between food and people is now more in the
hands of family planners than farmers.”When Brown wrote, there were 5.6 billion of us.Irrational policymakers disregarded the
urgent need for family planning.And so,
today, at 7.2 billion, the world is a far more unstable place, with no light at
the end of the tunnel.

Twenty years before Brown’s book, China realized that
population growth was a problem.They
were adding 13 million every year, and emigration was not a real option.Their one-child policy was launched in 1979,
and the transition was bumpy.The birthrate
fell from 2.7 percent in 1970 to 1.1 percent in 1994.It succeeded in preventing much misery, but
it didn’t stop growth.Brown praised
them for actually taking action, forcing the present generation to sacrifice
for the benefit of future generations — a concept unimaginable to Americans.